


Broken Glass

by LitLocked



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: His Last Vow Spoilers, M/M, Pining!Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-03
Updated: 2014-03-03
Packaged: 2018-01-14 11:53:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1265551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LitLocked/pseuds/LitLocked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock decides to not confess his love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Glass

_“I know someday you’ll have a beautiful life_

_I know you’ll be the sun in somebody else’s sky_

_But why, why, why can’t it be, can’t it be mine?”_

-Black, Pearl Jam

 

He doesn’t want me the way he wants her. Why should he?

Watch everyone. Watch me. The great, aloof, heartless Sherlock Holmes has been reduced to a pining heap because of one John Hamish Watson.

John, with his sandpaper brown hair and deep blue eyes. With his scars and nerves of steel and inexhaustible reserves of patience. With his contained rage that switches from steadying warmth to lethal weapon in the blink of an eye. A marksman with deadly aim and a healer- a study in contradictions. Invaluable to The Work, indispensable to me. Who shot through my heart without even aiming to.

John, my blogger. Who wrote me out of oblivion and obscurity. Who put me back together through his words, who called my abilities “amazing” and “brilliant” and “fantastic”. Who called me an idiot but decided to join me in every idiocy I’ve ever undertaken.

John, the one force standing between me and oblivion. The one anchor that keeps me on the side of the angels. I don’t care about good or bad, not really. He’s the moral compass I never thought I’d need. I don’t care what side I’m on, so long he’s standing by me. And that’s how I know Good from Not Good. He, who managed to see something worthwhile in the mess of Not Good that I am. A mess that I’m willing to sort, just to keep his trust. I can’t bear the thought of leaving his side or hurting him. God knows I’ve done enough of that for several lifetimes.

I might be his best friend, but that implies he has several other friends. I have none but the cocaine vial and the skull.

What can I possibly hold for him, except a certain danger? I, whose abrasiveness keeps everyone at arm’s length. Whose single-mindedness is a cover for his inadequacy. Whose utter disregard for sentiment and people is so extreme as to render him nearly inhuman. Sometimes I wish I were actually that inhuman, if only to stop the hurt coursing through my veins.

Even the danger, as it turns out, isn’t unique to me. He can get it from her too, now.

She might be broken, too. But he chose her brand of brokenness. Anyway, she is capable of love, and capable of going to extreme lengths for him. Even if that involves shooting me. I wish I could hate her for that, but I understand her desperation to keep him. May be she too feels she doesn’t completely deserve him, but then no one does. Most importantly, she was there when I wasn’t. And for that alone, she’s better than me. Far, far more deserving of him than I ever would be.

I’m a hurricane; I can’t help destroying everything in my path. I’ve already destroyed him once.

She will have his love, his adoration, his family. Meanwhile I will learn to live with his friendship and my deluded dreams of what could have been.

I cannot make a gift of my brokenness to the man who made me whole, for however short a while. He will probably accept me as I am, yet again, and nothing could better reinforce how undeserving I am of him.

I have no intention of chafing his life with shards of broken glass. I can’t stop my heart or myself from being broken, but I can stop it from hurting him. And this is why he will never know that my not-so-non-existent-after-all heart is his. And only his, even if his can never be mine.

 


End file.
